In a silver halide photographic material, coloration of the photographic emulsion layers and other hydrophilic colloid layers constituting the material is often modified for the purpose of controlling the spectral composition of the light to be applied to the material or for the purpose of preventing halation or irradiation of the material. It is necessary only that the layer to which the dye has been added is selectively colored therewith in order that the dye does not impart any harmful spectral effect to the other layers and that the dye sufficiently displays filter, anti-halation and anti-irradiation effects. However, when the layer to which the dye has been added is kept in contact with other hydrophilic colloid layers in a wet condition, a part of the dye often diffuses from the former to the latter. In order to prevent such diffusion of the dye, various efforts have heretofore been made.
For instance, a method of coloring a specific layer with solid fine grains of a water-insoluble dye is illustrated in JP-A-56-12639, JP-A-55-155350, JP-A-55-155351, JP-A-63-197943, European Patents 15,601, 274,723, 276,566, and 299,435, U.S. Pat. No. 4,803,150, and International Patent Application Laid-Open No. (WO)88/04794. (The term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application".)
Specifically, a method using solid fine grains of an oxonole dye is illustrated in JP-A-52-92716, JP-A-55-120030, JP-A-63-27838, JP-A-64-40827, JP-A-2-277044, JP-A2-282244, JP-A-3-23441, JP-A-3-208044, JP-A-3-192250, JP-A-3-194544, JP-A-3-200248, JP-A-3-204639, JP-A-3-204640, JP-A-3-206441, JP-A-3-206442, JP-A-3-208042, JP-A-3-208043, and JP-A-3-213847.
The improved methods still suffer from various problems. The decoloration rate in development is low so that the disclosed techniques do not satisfactorily modify the characteristics of the photographic materials. For instance, when a photographic material is processed by rapid processing or with a modified processing solution, or when the composition of the photographic emulsion constituting a photographic material is modified, the decoloring function is not always sufficiently displayed or the dye incorporated into the photographic material often has a bad influence on the photographic properties of the material.